The Earth Conundrum: Book 1 of the Alliance Conflict Read Online Free Page A

by-pass router.”
    “Wait,” asked Clowy, “Why would we ever need to by-pass the secondary system?”
    Lorano laughed and answered, “It doesn’t do that. The secondary by-pass router is technically the button you push to use the emergency back-up system. It had created a small feedback loop that was causing the issue. I had never seen one fail like that, it took me quite a while to diagnose it.”
    Captain Solear looked over at Carank, who simply smiled back and winked knowingly. The Captain mouthed a thank you to Carank and said, “Clowy, please answer the hail.”
    “Captain Solear,” said Captain Dalan, the captain of the Justice , “I had some of the debris from the enemy fighter brought on board. We found something unusual in the wreckage and really don’t know what it means. We need help analyzing it.”
    Captain Solear was angry at himself for not thinking of inspecting the debris. The enemy had certainly acted strangely and there may be clues in the wreckage. From the sound of the message, the answer may be in the debris. He answered, “What is it, a new metal or type of weapon?”
    “No. It is a trace of a biological fluid,” answered Dalan. He continued, “At least we think it is. We ran some standard tests and had the computer analyze it. We know that it isn’t a known coolant fluid from a fighter and it doesn’t appear to be Hiriculan blood.”
    Captain Solear looked over at Lorano. He was sitting at a spare panel; his large, aqua eyes were focused on a minor detail of something. Solear gave a brief sigh, pulled in a new breath of air and said, “Lorano, we really need your help on this one. Please transfer over to the Justice and see if you can identify this fluid.”
    Lorano answered, “I can’t Captain. My primary duty is to ensure that there is nothing wrong with Sunflower . If something goes wrong with the ship while I am away…”
    ‘I will feel terrible about it’, the Captain mentally finished the sentence.
    “I will get a blemish on my record,” Lorano said.
    “Lorano,” said the Captain, “You know that you are the only one in the taskforce with the skills and intelligence required to solve this problem. If the Hiriculans have developed a new technology or ability we don’t know, it could change everything. The situation could go from a dispute to a shooting war. Further, I promise I won’t move Sunflower until you complete the analysis.”
    “Fine,” said Lorano, clearly making it sound like the request was a huge sacrifice.
    Lorano left the bridge and headed for the shuttle. Engineering was kind enough to collect his gear and have it sent to the shuttle so that Lorano didn’t have to return there. About 15 minutes later Clowy announced that the shuttle had left Sunflower .
    The captain said, “Ella, Clowy, you two go get some rest and maybe a snack. Not much is going to happen for the next few hours.”
    They took the electro lift down a level to their crew quarters and went straight to the galley. Meals were mostly self-serve. Enter a selection and a preserved packet would be automatically heated to the correct temperature. Fortunately, both Altians and Solarians could eat the majority of Advranki foods, so they had a good selection. They each got a snack from the galley and went into Ella’s quarters.
    There were six available rooms in the officer’s quarters, but only four were occupied. Ella and Clowy were on one side and Carank and Arean were on the opposite side. Fortunately, Lorano had chosen to stay in the engineering section.
    Ella’s room was dominated by a large holographic picture viewer. Currently, it was showing a painting that featured a bird flying above a majestic rock canyon. Each week, Ella’s father would send a picture of his latest masterpiece and Ella would display it on the viewer. This was the third picture Ella had displayed since the voyage began. Ella’s father was a renowned painter and sculptor on Solaria. His work had even been